INDIANAPOLIS (WKOW) -- The Wisconsin Badgers defended their Big Ten championship Saturday night and are making a return trip to the Rose Bowl.
Montee Ball ran for 201
yards and three touchdowns, and Wisconsin as a team rushed for 539 yards to
rout No. 14 Nebraska 70-31 for a Big Ten title game result few saw coming.
The Badgers used Nebraska turnovers and a dominating rushing attack to take a 42-10 lead into the half, and they continued to pile up rushing yards in the second half.
Wisconsin will make three consecutive trips to the Rose Bowl for the 1st time in the program's history, and will be the first Big Ten team to make three
straight trips to the game since Michigan in the late 1970s. The Badgers lost in their 2010 and 2011 trips to Pasadena.
The
Badgers (8-5, 4-4 Big Ten) are the first team to reach the Rose Bowl
with five losses.
The Badgers remain the only team to win the Big 10 Championship Game, having beaten Michigan State in 2011's inaugural title game.
They also tied Texas' record for most points in a conference championship game.
It
was a fitting end to a wacky Big Ten season that pitted the Cornhuskers
(10-3, 7-1), the Legends Division champ, against the third-place team
from the Leaders Division. The teams that finished ahead of Wisconsin in the Leaders, Ohio State and Penn State, were not eligible to play in the championship game.
But Nebraska never had a chance with Ball and his teammates running wild.
Melvin Gordon led the Badgers in rushing with 217 yards on just nine carries and one TD, while James White had 108 yards, four rushing TDs and one passing TD.
